Some years ago, my young daughter had an operation.
Quite a simple operation about which we tend to laugh.
But, she was so young that the effect of it on her
was most intense, certainly in my eyes.
And I visited her shortly after the operation with her mother.
She was still under the anesthetic.
She was still obviously in pain although completely
unconscious.
And, in the same room there was an old lady
dying near the window.
And it suddenly seemed to me that here
was a diagram, almost, of the stages of the process.
Especially as it encounters the enemy,
the idea of unjust punishment, innocent suffering, pain
and so on.
And I saw these three women, the daughter, the mother,
and this old lady, as almost The Three Graces of human existence
on a somewhat an ugly light.
The poem is called Our Mother.
Tall windows full of sea light, two women and a child in tears.
Silent among screens and flowers, the ward
a quiet zone of air.
The girl whimpers in bed remote under the anesthetic still.
She sleeps on her new knowledge, a bride with bowels burning
and disarrayed.
She dreams a red Gorgon mask, warped in the steel kidney
dish.
The tender offals of her core worming around the raw stare.
Her mother watches, struck dumb.
Tears of recognition run for the stranger, daughter, self,
on whom in fascination her eyes feed.
As mine on her, a revenant, a rain
worn delicate stone shape that has looked long
into that other face direct.
In the next bed, dying of age, the carrier of all our harm
turns on us an emptiness of open mouth and damp eyes.
All three women, two in my care, the third beyond all care,
in tears.
Living, dying.
I meet their stare everywhere and cannot move.
[APPLAUSE]